Tripreport Sabah (Borneo, Malaysia) 2019 October 7th-31st Lennart Verheuvel www.shutterednature.com Sabah October 7th till October 31st. This was the second part of the trip I had planned to do after my studies were finished. Initially the plan was to go to Borneo for three months, I actually have asked for advice on the forum of Mammalwatching.com for that. Later I decided to change my mind and go for South-America, even later I decided to go for a combo: first three months South-America and then three weeks in Borneo. The road to Borneo was a long and bumpy one and I also ran into some difficulties during the trip, but in the end it was all worth it. The funny thing was that literally a week before my plane left, I still wasn’t sure if I could go, so looking back I’m really glad it all worked out. I travelled by myself but I did the first thirteen days of the trip together with Duncan McNiven and Debbie Pain from England and later we did our first five nights in Deramakot with Stuart Chapman and Nick Cox. It was nice searching for mammals (and birds) with these guys and it was really cool that the four of use managed to see Clouded Leopard together on one of the last nights of Stuart and Nick. I did fly on Tawau, which is not the nearest airport if you want to go to Danum but that was because I was first supposed to go with someone else, who backed out last minute and it was too expensive to change the destination. It’s a two hour bus ride from Tawau to Lahad Datu so that’s not too bad. I had set some goals in terms of mammals and birds for this trip. Of course I wanted to work on my goal to see all cats in the world. Borneo has five species, all of which were new for me. I had set the goal to see at least two of those. I figured Sunda Leopard Cat would be a guarantee and all the other cats are tough so any one of them would do. Secretly I hoped that one would be a Clouded Leopard because size matters after all. Other mammals on my list were Western Tarsier, Proboscis Monkey, Orang Utan, Slow Loris and Bornean Pygmy Elephant, so not a very long list and I figured it would be doable. For birds I did it how I usually do, set a couple of species as targets and then try to see as many birds as possible on top of that. For this trip my targets were Bornean Bristlehead and Rhinoceros Hornbill, both because of their appearance. I knew Bristlehead would be tough and Rhinoceros Hornbill would be easy. I got all of my targets and on top of that some more. The best thing about the trip for me was that I saw four of the five cats of Borneo! Only Bay Cat eluded me, but that was to be expected. Bonus photo tip: I see a lot of photo’s of people from mammals at night that all have the eyes completely lit up. Of course this is very common when you are photographing an animal at night, but it looks a lot better if you can avoid that. I practiced a lot with that so my tip would be if you are on your own, try to keep the light in one hand as far away from the other hand with you camera as possible. If you have someone else holding the light it will be easier. Even if you don’t manage to get dark pupils, it will not be hard to edit that out later and make it black again. As long as the retina’s show colour it should still look pretty natural. I’m sure I’m not the first one who has figured that out, so do with it what you want! Some general remarks about the country I only travelled in Sabah, so only the Malaysian part of Borneo. This was my first visit to East-Asia so I can’t really compare it to other countries in the region. In the restaurants I had some funny experiences. The first ones the waiters would always ask me when I was finished ordering, ‘Is that all?’, looking at me like the only thing I ordered was a glass of tap water. I think they just tried to be polite. Also in the restaurant was a sign saying ‘If you eat more cheese, you are much harder to kidnap’, a very cleverly thought out slogan to promote a particular brand of cheese . In another restaurant I had some battles with shrimps. It was actually a pretty fancy once, but you would get soup with fully-scaled shrimps in it (so I mean shrimps that have not been peeled, or however you say that). So the choice is to either leave the shrimps in peace (which is a waste of tasty shrimp), crunch them down and hope you somehow manage to digest all the scales, or the third option lay out your fancy napkin, fish out all the shrimps and de-scale them one by one like a caveman. I picked the last option of course. So pretty eventful restaurant experiences. Also keep in mind that a lot of local people are Muslim and do not appreciate it if you bring beer with you in the house/hostel. I bought beer with some French guys after a brilliant Bornean Ground Cuckoo observation, thinking the owners were okay with it. They were not, so after our first beer we put the rest somewhere away from the house. Not such a big deal, but make sure to check thoroughly with your hosts before bringing in any beer! Language I usually try to be able to speak a bit of the local language, but it this case I didn’t know a single word. I was fine, most people speak (a bit of) English and when they don’t there is usually someone nearby who does. Transport There are big buses and minibuses. Anyone of them can usually be boarded by being in the right place at the right time and making clear you want to come along. They will stop and you’ll pay on board. Usually people from hotels/hostels know the schedule of the buses and can even make an arrangement for you, they can also be full! The big ones are the best to go with obviously. Taxis are not so expensive and affordable. Sim Card Go for Maxis or Hotlink for the best signal (particularly in Deramakot). Schedule of the trip October 07: Amsterdam-Doha 08: Doha-Kuala Lumpur 09: Kuala Lumpur-Tawau 10: Tawau-Lahad Datu-Danum 11-13: Danum Valley Field Centre 15-23: Deramakot 24-26: Kinabatang River (Osman’s Homestay) 27-30: Mount Kinabalu, leaving on the 30th from Kota Kinabalu 31: KK-Kuala Lumpur-Doha-Amsterdam. About the areas Sabah might just have the best tripreport/surface ratio of any place on Mammalwatching.com so there is little new I can say. I will put in my own experience with the places though. Danum Valley Field Centre I slept in the hostel. This is a big room full of bunkbeds on both sides. It has fans. It was fine, especially as I had no one sleeping on the beds around me. It’s possible to go on nightdrives. You can go on a 1,5 hour night drive which costs 160 MYR total, you share that amount with everyone who comes along. The other option is going for a private night drive for 320 MYR which will give you three hours. Then you’re also in charge of who comes along, I would go for the last option because the extra time is worth it. You could also drive the road to Danum by yourself, that wouldn’t be hard and it has been done by others. Based on what I’ve read so far and on our success I think you would definitely see some good stuff if you put in the same time at Danum as people usually do at Deramakot. The trails can officially only be walked with park rangers. However the big road is allowed, and we also did the trails on our own. Nobody minded. I also went in alone at night after I was sure everyone was already back. I saw groups of twenty leaving for a night walk… To me that’s just a waste of time. On my own I found a Tarsier, the thermal scope is also very good for finding sleeping pitta’s. Deramakot Visited a lot by mammalwatchers. Of course Mike is a very well-known guide there and I’m sure his reputation is well-deserved. My guide however for ten days was Adee, also from AA Borneo and I can recommend her without hesitation. She picked up a lot of stuff and was quick to ID almost anything. I found the night drives at Deramakot to be pretty exciting, you get a lot more eyeshine than I was used to until know from other places and there is a lot of good stuff around. After the first six nights it got a bit more boring, but I went out with a bang with a good sighting of an Otter Civet. You could think about driving the road yourself, or taking your own car with you to do some driving on you own during the day, but make sure you are actually allowed to.